Here is the programme of events for 2014′s Queer Social Centre. Some things are awaiting further info and are subject to change, but this is basically how the weeks are gonna run…

Location: 432 COLDHARBOUR LANE, BRIXTON.

Closed Days – we will be closed on Mondays & Tuesdays to give the live-in crew a break.

Food – dinner will be served Weds-Fri both weeks, at 9.30pm. There will be drinks & snacks available every day. Food will be mostly – if not entirely – vegan.

Dry Days – like last year, we will have four ‘dry’ days – Thursday & Friday both weeks. On these days we will not be serving alcohol, and we ask people to please not bring alcohol or other intoxicants into the space or turn up under the influence. There’re some things to read on sobriety & radical/queer spaces here and here. Do contact us if you have any further questions.

Sass Squat (Sasha Wortzel, 2009) A portrait of an all-queer squat in West Philadelphia. This piece examines the significance of reclaiming underutilized space through the exploration of a unique living space and the people who call it home

Battle of Tutenhaus (Juliet Bashore, 1991) Tutenhaus, the “House of Queers”, a squat in 1980s East Berlin, survived attacks from neo-nazis but was violently evicted by the West German police after reunification.

Colorama 2 (Kahm Fiaa Enck, 2013) a group of strangers inhabit an empty photo printing lab in South London. part of an unwinding spiral of explorations within spaces thought abandoned, their journey together is one of stuttered re-awakenings and collective desires amidst the discards of a dying world

Thursday 3rd July SEX & RELATIONSHIPS [2pm-midnight] [DRY DAY]

2pm Monstrous makeup workshop by Oozing Gloop

4pm Laughter yoga

6pm Knowledge is Power: Sex Ed 101 – sex educator Lilith aims to re-imagine sexual education as something useful, empowering and fun, and seeks to arm their fellow queers with the info and skills to frolic both safely and sensually.

7.15pm Can’t Fuck, Won’t Fuck: a discussion on the limits of sex-positivity – Have you ever felt left out or alienated by sex-positivity and the way it plays out in your interpersonal relationships or in the spaces where you hang out? Have you ever felt pressure to feel/perform desire, to be (or be seen to be) sexually active, to have relationships or date people, to do non-monogamy (or to do it in a specific way), to have fulfilling/pleasurable sex or to have certain kinds of sex? Do you feel like sex-positivity often ignores the reality of living in a racist, ableist, cissexist, hetero-patriarchal rape culture? Have you ever felt like consent shouldn’t be framed in terms of sexiness? Does your queer community fail to make space for people on the asexual and aromantic spectrums?

When most of the queer spaces we have access to are explicitly sex-positive and/or centred around hooking up, talking about sex-negative or sex-critical feelings can often make us feel like kill-joys pissing on everyone else’s sexually liberated parade. This discussion aims to provide a safer space in which to talk about the above questions. We will also be exploring ways in which our queer communities can be more inclusive of those who can’t fuck, won’t fuck, don’t fuck, or who chose to only fuck some of the time.

In order to create as safe a space as possible, we ask that people arrive on time and do not join the discussion once it has begun. Please arrive at 7:15 for a 7:30 start.

The session is open to queer people of all genders or none. Sex-posi people welcome!

This discussion is being facilitated by the writers of the zine FUCKED: on being sexually dysfunctional in sex-positive queer scenes. Contact us: sexcritical@gmail.com
9.30pm Dinner & film screening

D.E.B.S. (Angela Robinson, 2004)

Recruited by the U.S. government for their unique ability to lie, cheat and fight, Amy, Max, Janet and Dominique join an underground academy of secret agents known as D.E.B.S. But when Amy falls for criminal mastermind Lucy Diamond, chaos erupts and the D.E.B.S. loyalty is put to the test…

Friday 4th July ADVENTURE TIME [2pm – 3am] [DRY DAY]

7pm Workshop/discussion tbc

9.30pm Dinner

Saturday 5th July CRAFTS & SKILLS [midday – 3am]

All day zine fair, radical library, arts & crafts activities.

1pm Radical practical self-defence

3pm Queers with gears – bike mechanics workshop

4pm Radical education workshop

5pm Queering computers with Autonomous Tech Fetish

8pm Acoustic / open mic performances, rumoured to feature SOME members of The Dykeness and Screaming Toenail with re-imagined performances for a 12volt ACAB set-up

Sunday 6th July BOOKS ETC [midday – midnight]

All day zine fair, radical library, arts & crafts activities

3pm Interactive drama workshop: The Homophobe in the Head. Have you ever acted in a way that was not as a totally Out and Proud Queer? Were there voices in your head stopping you? Whose voices were they? How did they get there? How do we get rid of them? This exciting interactive session uses Augusto Boal’s Cop in the Head exercise adapted for our own special Pride Celebrations. Fun, engaging and enlightening interactive drama from Queer Drama Head, John Hoggett (Alias Mz Vanilla)

2pm Women and non binary electrical workshop. It will teach basic safety when doing electrics and stuff that may crop up in squats.

4pm Computer security workshop (open to all genders). This will be for mobiles and laptops. Only bring laptops fully charged as we don’t have electricity. But bringing one isn’t necessary.

5pm (Also Thursday & Friday – times to be decided) Martial Arts for all self-identifying women and also genderqueer/trans/non-binary people who feel they have a connection to women’s communities. Please bring comfortable practical clothing.

7pm Panel & group discussion with Stonewall Housing, Queers Against the Cuts, Sex Workers Open University and House of Brag. How can we cope with capitalism, poverty & ‘austerity’? How can we stay safe and support each other through confrontations with cops, immigration officials & the ‘justice’ system? How can we centre the most marginalised of our community and fight for inclusive radical change?

9.30pm Dinner & film screening

Born In Flames(Lizzie Borden, 1983)

Police have been puzzled in the last week by what they describe as well-organized bands of 15 to 20 women on bicycles attacking men on the street… After a peaceful socialist revolution fails to bring an end to oppression and violence against women, feminist radicals organise to fight back.

All day art space with activities to prepare for Saturday’s MONSTROUS PRIDE event – make a mask, a playlist, some angry stickers, a monster costume, a highly flammable effigy of David Cameron, all of the above

3pm Radical History Walk with Carolyn, walk about Brixton and learn the amazing legacy of Olive Morris.

we have some gorgeous flyer and poster designs for the social centre! please feel free to share them online, print them out, give them to people, stick them up in yr front windows, take them to yr local squats/shops/venues/bars/libraries/community centres etc and ask to put them up. thanks & love!

Attention, comrades! We’re thinking that it would be a very nice and useful thing to hold caucuses for the duration of the social centre. Especially, we hope, over delicious dinner foods!

A caucus would be a closed meeting for people belonging to particular groups, talking about particular issues that affect them. So for example there could be caucuses for people of colour, for trans* people, for sex workers, for disabled people… you name it.

Want to hold a caucus on a particular day? Shoot us an email at house.of.brag@gmail.com. Of course, it’ll also be totally possible to just organise one on the day!

couple of meeting announcements: our next open meeting will be on SUNDAY (22nd) this weekend, not Saturday. still at LARC (62 Fieldgate St), 5pm for working groups and 6pm for general meeting as usual. probably the last open meeting before the social centre opens, so do come along!

there’s also an interesting discussion happening on Thursday 26th June: “Putting Politics and Pride back into Pride”, as part of the TUC LGBT Conference. 1pm at TUC Congress House, 23-28 Great Russell St. Zacharia Brag will be speaking about the queer social centre project!

finally, here are the minutes from last saturday’s meeting:

Reports back from working groups:

Programme:
– Programme is filling up but there will be space for last minute additions
– Idea to have caucuses during dinner – this would require 2 eating spaces
– Ja to contact spoken word community incl PJ Samuels about performance events
– We discussed possibility of providing a workshop for queer teenagers. Decision not to include this in programme as it is too short notice to find someone to run and promote to teenagers. But we will look for zines & books aimed at kids & youth, and Comms will research queer youth groups to advertise Social Centre programme to

March:
– idea is to have a demo outside home office which may spontaneously turn into a march
– accessibility – a vehicle will follow in case people overestimated walk
– T to compile and share accessibility info with other working groups
– Monster March Mask Making Workshop will be on 11th at social centre.

Other Business:
– Discussion on sign interpreters – H to find out if an interpreter will be needed at any events, if so A potentially has a contact for sign interpreting.
– Discussion on volunteer roles – Jo has compiled a detailed list – Ja suggested welcoming roles and volunteered himself for this.
– Discussion of possibility of fundraiser events for other orgs – decision that this would be fine. Preference that there would be no obligation to ‘donate’ in order to enter the space. Donation buckets and announcements inside the space.

Our friends at awesome queer homelessness organisation Stonewall Housing (an independent charity with no connection to smug classist transphobic wankers Stonewall, who make the bus adverts) are starting a new project to improve the way they can help and support LGBTQ+ people who sleep rough. Existing projects such as No Second Night Out often don’t recognise the specific needs of queer rough sleepers and Stonewall Housing want to change this.

Last year, 78 people who called us for housing advice told us they were rough sleeping. A further 143 said they were part of the hidden homeless, unknown to housing services, who were living in insecure and often unsafe spaces.

Finding Safe Spaces is an innovative new project working with lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* people who experience rough sleeping in Manchester, Brighton and East London.

Funded by the Homeless Transition Fund, we will:
speak directly with LGBT* rough sleepers about their experiences;
work alongside people who support or champion LGBT* rough sleepers;
work with No Second Night Out to make sure that LGBT* rough sleepers are getting the service they need.

One of Team Brag (who is herself a queer homeless person) is going to be helping out as a community researcher, running interviews and focus groups and helping the professional housing workers gain a better understanding of queer homelessness.

If you identify as LGBTQ+ and have experienced rough sleeping (which includes sleeping on public transport, in parks, in bus or train stations, on the street, etc, during the day or night) at least one time in the last two years, get in touch with Robin on 07908 522 972 or robin@stonewallhousing.org.

SH will pay transport costs and give a £10 shopping voucher for anyone taking part in an interview or focus group.

Michael and Robin from Stonewall Housing will also be coming to our new social centre building to talk about queer homelessness and the work that they do on Wednesday 9th July!